Less than two weeks to Christmas. It could be time to start Christmas shopping. This is the time when we all of a sudden begin to know for sure that there’s no possible way to get everything done, especially with heavy traffic subtracting minutes and hours from the day. Here’s an idea or two for dealing with that holiday Stress:
- Carry Bubble liquid in the glove compartment. Take a minute and look ahead to that moment during the day when you know you’ll need the light of laughter. For me, it is that heavy traffic time. So I always carry Bubble liquid in the glove compartment and when traffic grinds to a halt, which it will do, I simply roll down the window and start to blow. Now, instantly several things happen. I feel better, my air passages have widened and I’m more relaxed, and from a look at the faces of the people around me, I can see that I’ve changed their stress level, too. And most interesting of all, often a path will open up and I can slip right out. The important thing is to find something you can depend on to make you laugh.
- Keep a mirror in your desk drawer. If you have to speak to someone disagreeable on the phone (no one we know, of course) you can just slide open the drawer and make faces into it while you’re talking. The person on the phone will never know, and you’ll feel so much better.
- I have a friend who keeps a big, fluffy pillow and tennis racket at work. When stress accumulates, she simply excuses herself, goes into the other room and spends a happy five minutes beating the stuffing out of the pillow, which she names for her adversary.
- If the situation is really critical you can draw the offender’s face on the pillow with a felt tip pen. And THEN beat the stuffing out of him – or her.
MEET THE AUTHOR: Dorothy Wilhelm will be signing her new book, Catch The Christmas Spirit And Keep It All Year Long on Wednesday, December 10 in the lobby of The News Tribune, from noon to 3. The News Tribune is at 1950 S. State Street in Tacoma. The lobby is very big. Everybody come. Signings also on Dec 13 at the DuPont Library at 10:00 and at the Western Heritage Center in Puyallup at 7:00.
Contact her at Dorothy@itsnevertoolate.com • PO Box 881, DuPont, WA 98327, or 1-800-548-9264.